Dear Issa

First published on Messages to Issa on the Haiku Guy website in January of 2020. Originally written in November of 2019. See also “Flowers on the Roof of Hell.” For more about Issa, please also see my essay “For the Love of Issa.”

Oh, you’ve written about bugs again. Your child dies

your wife dies, your house burns down

and you write about bugs.

Is there no consolation anywhere? Is it just

the small and downtrodden

who share with you

the same burning heart?

Did you know that Issa is the name of Jesus in Arabic?

Are you a savior of a different sort? Or were you

always in search of a savior,

if that savior wasn’t poetry, or a warm cup of tea?